1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to the field of object type transformations and in particular to the field of multiple stage document format transformations. Still more particularly the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for identifying the existence of multiple stage object type transformations and identifying the number of stages in each such transformation.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the modern electronic office environment documents or other objects may exist in many different format or types. For example, it is common for a document to exist in any one of multiple word processing formats, image formats, graphic formats, facsimile formats, binary formats or other user-defined formats. In a multi-vendor network environment documents may be sent from one user to another user wherein each user may utilize different document editors to work with the document. In situations in which each user desires to edit the document within a different format it is therefore necessary to provide document transformation applications which may be utilized to convert the document from an original document type to a second document type which is manipulatable by the receiver.
Those situations in which a document type may be simply and efficiently transformed from a first document format to a second document format utilizing an existing transformation application are simple and efficient to utilize. However, the increasing complexity and number of document formats which are available in the modern electronic office environment make it necessary to utilize hundreds of different document transformation applications in order to be able to convert a document to a desired format or type.
Additionally, it is often necessary for a document to be transformed into an intermediate stage prior to ultimate conversion to the desired document type due to the lack of a direct transformation application capable of transforming the original document to the desired document format.
While many different document transformation applications exist there is no expedient and efficient method to determine the existence or nonexistence of a multiple stage format transformation. In modern electronic systems which are capable of performing hundreds of multiple transformations it should be obvious that a need exists for a technique to determine whether or not a multiple stage format transformation is possible to avoid the expenditure of enormous amounts of processor assets.